06.08.07
Don’t mess with my arachnophobia
When you design a horror game or even just horror elements in a game, I think it’s important to make one distinction. You need to distinguish between rationally motivated or perhaps culturally based fears and deep-seated emotional phobias. The fear of being cut to pieces by a serial killer or eaten alive by zombies are logical fears that motivate us to stay alive. The fear of monsters (such as zombies) makes sense: Monsters are big, disgusting, mysterious, hungry, have big teeth and/or claws, and are above all dangerous. If you encounter a creature you have never before seen and of which you know very little, but which is exhibiting an unpleasant degree of aggression towards you, it makes sense on so many levels to run away. You should be scared of these things, this fear isn’t necessarily deeply rooted in your psyche, even if you stop to think about it, you’ll most likely find that panicking is the logical course of action.
Many people enjoy having these fears tested, exploited, and stimulated once in a while. This is why we read H. P. Lovecraft or watch Event Horizon or Alien. This is why we play Resident Evil and why everybody’s favourite level from Thief 3 is the Shalebridge Cradle. Good horror is awesome. But there is a difference between these fears and phobias. Let me tell you how much I hate spiders.
I hate the way they move and any creature that moves in a way resembling that of a spider will strike fear into my heart, even the low-polygon spider robots in Deus Ex that bear only a passing resemblance to a real spider. Not only do I fear spiders crawling on or near me, I fear them when they are sitting still in their webs or on my wall; I fear them when they are dead and their corpses lie on my floor; my heart starts racing when I have to suck a dead spider into my vaccuum cleaner, and often I must take a break from vaccuuming afterwards to calm down and think of something else. I fear spiders when they are behind glass. The corpse of a small spider hangs between the two glass panes of my living room window, and I am startled by it every time I have to vaccuum the window sill. I fear images of spiders to such a degree that I am unable to bring myself to touch even a picture of a spider in a book. Frequently, I dream of spiders crawling near my bed, and I will awaken with a scream and jump out of bed, panicked.
Bottom line: I am really afraid of spiders.
Of course I know it makes no sense. Spiders are harmless, at least any sort of spider you can find in Denmark. And ironically, the scarier spiders are, the less dangerous they actually seem to be. The most dangerous spiders in the world tend to be the little plump ones that look sort of lazy but happen to pack enough poison they can kill you just by thinking about biting you. The huge hairy ones that eat birds are completely harmless to human beings, and the terrifyingly lean hunting spiders that are built like racing cars and somehow manage to scurry across the floor at god damn light speed in spite of being the size of a small mouse are made of the same fabric as my nightmares but couldn’t harm me even if they planned it out really carefully beforehand. But my subconscious does not care if this fear makes sense, arachnophobia is deeply rooted into the darkest systems of my mind. Gah, even as I’m writing this, I see those motherfuckers crawling along the wall in the periphery of my vision!
So how do you think it makes me feel when I buy Dark Messiah so I can kick some orc butt only to get stuck on the third level because spiders the size of ponies crawl along the ceiling towards me and JUMPINMYFACEWITHACHITTERINGSCREAMOMG!? Can you even begin to imagine the hopelessness I feel when I realize that even after having a friend over to deal with the spider section so I can go back to fighting orcs, there are more spiders later!? And do you think it motivates me to finish the game when I complain to a friend about the giant spiders and his reply is “What do you mean spiders, I thought there was only one?” Oh, because the pony-sized spiders aren’t giant!? You’re telling me there’s a bigger one!? To hell with that, then!
So Dark Messiah has been lying on my desk for months now. I got about half-way through it, I think, before my arachnophobia won and I gave up on it. It has the best, most hectic and empowering melee combat system I have ever experienced in a game, but I can’t play it because of the spiders. Thank you, Arcane. And why do I write this rant now? Because I’ve been playing Call of Juarez. I’ll write more about it when I’m finished with it, it’s a really great game. It’s a western. Surely there are no spiders in a western, right? Wrong.
Okay, so they aren’t the size of ponies. They are, however, spiders of the bird-eating variant, chittering from dark corners of web-infested tunnels to warn you of their presence, then scurrying across the floor to bite your feet because that is just what bird-eating spiders do, or something!? Guys… STOP MESSING WITH MY ARACHNOPHOBIA. These are some serious buttons you are pushing, and I do not enjoy it! The wolves are fine. The rattlesnakes are great. The eagle that swoops down to knock you off of high cliffs was great. But no spiders, okay? It makes no sense and it kills my enthusiasm for your otherwise extremely enjoyable game.
No more spiders in games. Please.
Jonas said,
June 13, 2007 at 13:48
For the record, here is an excerpt of my exchange with Ricemanu:
Jonas: Where did DM get to you? Was it the giant spiders?
Ricemanu: the giant spider wasnt the problem, but the small ones, the squishy sound was so disturbing
Jonas: When you say “giant spider”… do you mean “giant spiderS”?
Jonas: Or do you mean to imply that the ones I’ve met so far are in fact… NOT giant?
Ricemanu: as far as i know, there was only one giant spider in the game
Jonas: Holy shit
Ricemanu: oh, you didnt meet the giant one yet
That was when I stopped playing Dark Messiah.
Smike said,
July 4, 2007 at 11:56
I’m soooooo spamming your web-log.
You know, I don’t like being on top of tall things. It’s not a fear of heights, as I have my pilot’s license in both rotary and fixed-wing aircraft and am certified in parachute operation (sky-diving). So obviously, I love heights like nothing else. But I am terrified to stand on tall objects, such as buildings. I don’t like stairs, and I despise elevators. Anything more than one story high scares the hell outta me. Actually, even tall planes frighten me until I’m off the ground. I know, that’s fucking insane, yes. I can’t stand transatlantic flights, for example, because 747s are so god damned high while on the ground. The smaller the aircraft, the better. Also, looking up at tall things scares me just as much. I like being upside-down in an aircraft, or looping or rolling, etc, but I don’t like looking up at a hotel. And the most terrifying sensation on the planet for me is STANDING ON A BALCONY AND LOOKING UP AT THE ROOF. I get chills just thinking about it. I’m fucking serious. You with spiders, I am with tall things.
Actually, I used to have pet spiders. I still do sort of, but mostly I just keep them to clear the place of bugs. I mean, I love spiders - they’re really helpful animals, especially if you garden! And most of them are completely harmless, FFS. When I was a wee lad, I had two giant brown-tarantulas, whom I loved very much, and named Bill and Lenny. One got eaten by one of my cats, Phatness. It was Bill’s fault - he was always going exploring and one day it was bound to happen. The Phatest was always eyeing him, licking his chops. The other, Lenny, well I will spare you. Think of a flower field with high-end computers and fluffy-tailed cats or something. Go to your happy place.
Also, I love the Might and Magic series more than any other game series, end of story. And it is true - they have more giant spiders in that series - it’s almost a trademark. I mean, those, Dwarves and skeletons are the only three monsters I can remember, off the top of my head, that were in every single Might and Magic RPG. They didn’t show up in the Heroes of M&M games until the fourth, however, and that was just a giant mechanical spider, not a real one. So I think the reason he had them was, as you say, simply the terror of seeing them come at you on the screen, and even for someone who loves spiders, they were fucking scary. No doubt. I used to turn off the lights and break out in a cold sweat playing MM3, and 4, 5, 6, etc… But Jon Van Caneghem always did that immersion stuff zounds better than anyone else who ever tried.
Amazing that some completely separate developers can take that concept and scare the crap out of n00bs once again. That’s great to hear.
Also, these fucking “security codes” can go to hell. I can’t get one of ‘em, the fuckers. Security my ass. It’s just to torment me, isn’t it?
Jonas said,
July 4, 2007 at 13:29
Wow Smike your phobia is far weirder than mine. I mean arachnophobia isn’t all that crazy when you think about it, but it’s still a big problem. Your weird selective vertigo is just pretty silly.
I remember playing Might & Magic 6 for half a year with a friend. Half a year, two days a week most weeks somewhere in 7th or 8th grade. We had a two-ring binder full of categorized notes on the locations of obelisks, the times at which certain shrines could be used, a big list of alchemical recipes that took us a whole day to compile (which was way more fun than just finding it on the Internet), etc. The plot twist surrounding the Oracle had a tremendous impact after all that time we’d invested in the game, and something like finally acquiring the Divine Intervention and the stupidly disappointing Dark Containment spells was akin to a life-altering accomplishment. The spiders never scared me though. Not well enough animated.
Dark Messiah is, of course, a completely different sort of game. But the spiders are terrible.
And yes Smike, the security codes are only there to torment you. But if you sign up for the blog, they’ll go away. I promise.
Smike said,
July 4, 2007 at 23:49
No damned security codes? SOLD!
Being afraid of small, harmless, furry animals is crazy no matter how much I think about it. So I’m not going to say which phobia is more ridiculous, but perhaps I can explain better why I think they’re pretty close.
It’s extremely specific. I fear of those tall things FALLING ON ME. Or CRUMBLING TO THE GROUND and leaving a wake of destruction. If I am on them, I fear that they will give way, or that I will fall to my death after being pushed from someone behind me or that I will trip over something and over I go. I fear that elevator-wires will snap. Standing on a balcony and looking up compounds these two distinct fears, one, that the balcony will give way, and two, that the building will then proceed to fall on my face. Yes that’s crazy. OK, silly. Fine. But it has semi-logical methods of presenting its self in my mind, just like your spider thing. And frankly, I think it probably has to do with some childhood memory of falling from something high-up.
But in any case, with most aircraft, I understand how they’re built and how they work, and am 100% assured of the equipment, so it’s difficult for me to imagine being unsafe - when they’re in the air anyway. The added bonus is if I’m controlling the aircraft. The feeling of safety I have with those two points pretty much makes flying or falling with a chute the two most calm, comfortable, and relaxing things on earth for me, more so than lying in a bed.
But that is so fucking awesome to hear about your experience with MM6. That was a great one. I mean, that was a GREAT one. So many memories.
And if those spiders didn’t scare you, but the spider-bots in DX DID, then it sounds like the IMAGE of a spider isn’t the scary thing (because those were some mean-looking poorly animated giant spider sprites in MM6), but rather how evocative of actual creeping crawling spiders they are. Maybe that’s obvious to you, but it makes it more difficult for all of us creators of interactive or narrative works of fiction to understand what is going to scare you and Richard Cobbett too much and what is not. Because apparently games can have spiders, just not things that act like spiders.
Jonas said,
July 5, 2007 at 00:59
That is exactly the problem, the animation is the key point. The DX spider bots MOVE like spiders. I’ll add that the tiny ones aren’t much of a problem, it’s the two BIG ones that are bad (found respectively in the Ocean Lab and in A51, if I’m not mistaken); presumably because they are big enough that their spider-like movement can be properly made out. And they still are NOTHING compared to the Dark Messiah spiders because after all they are just robots. Oh, Shelop in LOTR was really bad too, I really squeezed the blood out of my girlfriend’s hand when we saw it (I had a girlfriend once, you know).
I do understand your height thing now, but I should clarify that my arachnophobia does not manifest itself logically in my mind. It has nothing to do with logic, it’s simply some primordial deep-seated terror that jumpstarts every muscle in my body if I see a spider moving close to me (or a giant one lurching at me on a computer or movie screen).
By the way, thanks for signing up! Always nice to have another user who doesn’t have a .ru email address and wants to sell me viagra. Oh, and I think it’s really cool that you have a pilot’s license.
Smike said,
July 5, 2007 at 08:55
Yeah, I actually wanted to be a Naval Aviator for a long time in my teenage days. People who know me are STILL surprised by that. I guess it kinda has nothing at all to do with the other things I occupy my time with, but I still dream of one day landing on a carrier in the dead of night, out in the Pacific, with only the glint of the ocean and the lights on the deck to guide me - call the ball, hook the trap, push the burner, disengage. What a rush.
But now, Shelob - that fucker was scary as hell. I wanted to cut her damned arachnid head off the minute I saw her ugly ass. But stop being so modest. You had five honeys. At one time. Isn’t “Jonas Waever” just Danish for “John Shaft”?
And I never said I didn’t want to sell you Viagra… :-O
Jonas said,
July 5, 2007 at 13:15
I was considering joining the airforce to become a helicopter pilot (because attack choppers are so damn awesome), but I wear specs, so that won’t work.
Wouldn’t wanna try landing a plane on a carrier though, too damn frightening.
So Smike is actually just an acronym for Spambot Masquerading as Intelligent Kafkaesque Entity? I might’ve known. Definitely explains the rambling nature of some of the mails you’ve sent me
Smike said,
July 6, 2007 at 00:06
* electronically gives J the finger *
http://johnkimblerap.ytmnd.com/